{"id":250404,"date":"2025-10-30T07:10:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T07:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/250404\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T07:10:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T07:10:09","slug":"rangers-still-wrapping-their-heads-around-mike-sullivans-offense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/250404\/","title":{"rendered":"Rangers still wrapping their heads around Mike Sullivan’s offense"},"content":{"rendered":"

EDMONTON, Alberta \u2014 The Rangers have not yet mastered the style of play they are working to implement as part of a new identity under head coach Mike Sullivan, but how could they in just 11 games?<\/p>\n

When it\u2019s as physically demanding and systematically detailed as it appears to be, the consistency may be a difficult element<\/a> to nail down in the early days. Considering just how different Sullivan\u2019s idea of a team game is compared to how they\u2019ve played in the past, the Rangers are clearly in a discovery period as they learn to balance their commitment to both sides of the puck.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we have a semblance of structure and a team game away from the puck, I think we\u2019re a whole lot harder to play against,\u201d Sullivan said Wednesday after practice at Rogers Place. \u201cWe cut not only the quantity of chances down, but the quality. And we think we\u2019ve got two pretty solid goaltenders that are going to make some saves for us. That, by nature, is going to give us an opportunity to be in every game we play. And then we can have the ability to create offense through our defense. I still think there\u2019s another level to our offensive game. I think we\u2019ve generated, as I\u2019ve said, we\u2019ve generated a number of scoring chances. It\u2019s not that we\u2019re not getting looks. We had a number of looks last night again<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"NewRangers\u2019 J.T. Miller, back left, misses the open net behind Vancouver Canucks goalie Thatcher Demko. AP<\/p>\n

\u201cBread [Artemi Panarin], for example, had three grade-A looks. He had two on the power play, and then he had one five-on-five when he was all alone at the net front. I mean, if he continues, get looks like that, I have to believe they\u2019re gonna go in the net. Mika [Zibanejad] scores a great goal. We had a number of deflection opportunities. JT [Miller] was all around the blue paint.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Win or lose, the Rangers have limited opponents to two goals or less in six of their first 11 games. Between goalies Igor Shesterkin and Jonathan Quick, opponents are always going to know what kind of challenge they\u2019ll face in net when playing the Blueshirts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"NewRangers head coach Mike Sullivan looks on against the Vancouver Canucks. Getty Images<\/p>\n

The low-scoring, low-event games the Rangers have found themselves in<\/a>, however, reflect positively on the soundness of their defensive structure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Many of the Rangers\u2019 first handful of games saw only one goal scored in the first 40 minutes of play. Even their first win of the season in Buffalo was a 1-0 game from the 11:43 mark of the first period until the Rangers scored again at 14:46 of the final frame.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Rangers have also given up the ninth-fewest shots against per game at 26.1.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRead the expert take on the Blueshirts\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Larry Brooks’ Inside the Rangers, a weekly Sports+ exclusive.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Despite owning the second-lowest goals-against-per-game average of 2.36, the fact that the Blueshirts also have the second-lowest goals-per-game average of 2.18 shows just how incomplete the general performance has been to start.<\/p>\n

Zibanejad noted that every game has felt tight, which has almost consistently given them a chance to win every night.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re generating offense, we just haven\u2019t scored,\u201d Sullivan said. \u201cSo we just got to, you know, stay with it and find another level to our offensive game without compromising and selling out on our team game. And we all know what that looks like when it happens, I think. We don\u2019t think that that\u2019s a recipe for success.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EDMONTON, Alberta \u2014 The Rangers have not yet mastered the style of play they are working to implement…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,63669,93125,3617,575,736,85],"class_list":["post-250404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mika-zibanejad","tag-mike-sullivan-nhl","tag-new-york-rangers","tag-nhl","tag-ny-sports-minute","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}